How well do you know your body and the way it functions?
I have come across women who are surprisingly uninformed or strangely misinformed about their reproductive health. If you are trying to conceive, whether naturally or through fertility treatment, there is no excuse for remaining ignorant.
If you have no idea what the reproductive part of your female anatomy looks like, now is the time. Choose your timing carefully for privacy, grab a hand mirror and have a look “down there.” While we all have the same “equipment,” it’s just like noses, eyes, lips and ears; each woman’s external reproductive anatomy has individual characteristics. In the UK, the kids call this area your "bits." When I was a kid, I called it my wee-wee. My son calls it a front-bottom. Oprah coined a new term, calling it a vajayjay, and there are countless other nicknames.
Women often refer to the entire area between their legs and below their pubic bone as their vagina. More accurately, the vagina is only part of the larger area know as the vulva. Knowing what’s there will only help your hygiene, your sex life and your understanding of conception and childbirth. I actually had a drawing to illustrate what I am explaining, but for techie reasons unknown to me, it refuses to participate in my blog. All you have to do is Google the word "vulva" if you need some extra help figuring out what is what.
When you are standing naked, looking down at your body, you may just see your pubic hair that covers your mons pubis; the fleshy bit about the size of your cupped hand, directly above the vulva. If you don’t have a perfectly flat tummy, stand in front of a full-length mirror. When your feet are spread shoulder-width, you may or may not be able to see anything else. However, sometimes a woman’s outer and/or inner vaginal lips will protrude and be visible when looking at her straight on. Pubic hair varies enormously from one woman to another, ranging from short and curly, to dark, light, straight, thin, wiry, limited to the mons pubis and outer lips or spreading up the belly in a line to the belly button and/or down the inner thighs. As I said, we come in different shapes and sizes; there is no one example of "normal."
If you sit on a chair or bed and spread your legs, use a hand mirror to identify:
- the outer lips of the vagina, which have pubic hair;
- the softer, smoother, thinner, inner vaginal lips;
- the clitoris at the top;
- the urethra; and the
- Vaginal opening.
While I hope that your sex education class in junior high covered this already, you may not have paid attention, so determined were you to disappear from embarrassment. It’s hard to believe but, many girls make it to womanhood without knowing that they urinate from the urethra, which is protected by the vaginal lips, but is not inside your vagina itself. You don't urinate from the same orifice in which you insert your tampon. The urethra has a tiny opening. Then there's the clitoris, which is small and hides at the top of the vulva, protected by outer layers. When the clitoris is stimulated, it feels like the nerve centre of your entire body, creating an orgasm, through sexual intercourse or other form of friction.
Any confusion about this may have been because the vagina does multiple jobs: it’s the 4 – 6 inch canal which accepts the penis into the female body during sexual intercourse, allows menstrual blood and cervical fluid to leave the body and when fully dilated, the passage through which your baby enters the outside world.
Have you ever seen a painting or read a book in which a woman’s sex organs are likened to a flower blossoming? When a woman is sexually stimulated, blood and naturally occurring lubricant make the vaginal lips swell, part and moisten, which may remind you of the petals of a flower like a rose or lily. Countless artists have used it to symbolize the image of femininity and sexuality; none more famously than Georgia O'Keefe, a 20th century painter who lived in New Mexico.
Women are sometimes made to feel embarrassed or ashamed of their sexual anatomy. It may have started while caught playing doctor with the neighbourhood kids or when they first got their period and were made to feel that that area was dirty. In some religions, women have to be cleansed in a ritual bath after they menstruate, before they can sleep with their husbands again. Men can also contribute to a woman’s negative thinking by using derogatory nicknames for her female sexual anatomy. It's not acceptable, as far as I am concerned. That's now, but as a young woman, I didn't have the confidence to refute those bullying words. Call it what you like, whether it's in the archaic, Latin terms, the modern, medical definitions or a nickname of your own. You don't have to buy into degrading, dismissive or crude slang.
If you are undergoing medical tests or treatment to help you conceive, you may be examined way more often than you had ever imagined, in a clinical atmosphere. Doctors poke and prod and insert speculums and scanning wands, nurses walk in and out and medical students follow their senior consultants around. You may need invasive procedures to extract eggs or implant embryos. You may need surgical procedures to open up fallopian tubes or remove scar tissue or fibroid cysts. You may have to ask questions about sex, or endure having your romantic lovemaking or passionate sex life discussed as appointments on the calendar. Keep that flower image instead. Create self-care rituals that are positive and feel-good; including cleansing of the vaginal area, trimming or waxing the pubic hair and wearing special lingerie that makes you feel special or sexy. A woman’s body is beautiful and something to feel proud about. Take care of it.
